Mobile foundation aims to close gap in breast cancer detection

Dr. Windy Dean-Colomb joined the staff of the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute in 2011. (Photo/John David Mercer)

MOBILE, Alabama -- Members of a breast-cancer support group in Mobile is working to create a foundation to help pay for early testing in women younger than 40 who fear that they have the disease.

Such help is vital in areas like Mobile where many families are poor, according to Dr. Windy Dean-Colomb, a scientist and oncologist specializing in breast cancer at the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute.

In February, she said, she told the group: “This is where I think we can make a difference in the lives of women and really save lives.”

Members of the support group — Breast Friends Forever — hopes to have funding in place as soon as summer. “I think our first check is going to come from the League of Women Voters,” Dean-Colomb said.

Alabama has effective programs for early detection of breast cancer in women 50 or older, Dean-Colomb said. But there’s little or no public funding for mammograms and other testing for younger women.

“The problem we have,” Dean-Colomb said, “is young women who have some kind of abnormality. They are the ones who fall through the cracks. I’m sure if more women knew about it they would be willing to help.”

Dean-Colomb recently took a call from a homeless clinic where a young woman had come in with a lump in her breast.

The woman’s mother died of breast cancer in her 40s and she feared the same fate. But she couldn’t pay for an ultrasound to diagnose the mass.

In some cases, Dean-Colomb said, even women with health insurance forego the exams because they’re unable to make the co-pay.

Once a board of directors is set, foundation members plan to work with medical centers in coastal Alabama where people without insurance typically get care. They hope to initially serve about 50 women a year.

“The idea is that we would educate doctors and clinics and shelters who might be seeing them,” said Mary McGinnis, a member of the League of Women Voters. “If there is a sense they need to have this screening, this foundation will help.”

Dean-Colomb, who completed a fellowship at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston before moving to Mobile, has a personal history with breast cancer. One of her sisters is battling the disease that will ultimately affect one in eight women.

“I’m always trying to find ways so we can reach as many women as we can, trying to provide the best quality care we can,” Dean-Colomb said.